Monday, December 28, 2009

next week it begins

Ok, so the legislature starts next week. Now, I've managed to put away a few Old Style's over the holiday's and I'm always one to enjoy the joy of the season, but I'm ready to get this started.

Indiana is going to have a projected budget shortfall of $1.8b over the next budget cycle. That doesn't necessarily mean much to folks in California or New York, but right now, we only have a surplus of $1b. That means my clients could be on the hook through new taxes and fees. What I was expecting to be a nice, quiet, low-key session, is going to be one that could evolve into a special session to find new funds.

The four clients remain only insurance clients. I have a dinner the first night of session with the two Insurance Chairmen and the Insurance Commissioner, and a client, and a non-client. Should be interesting. The cool thing about the dinner as I don't believe the House and Senate Insurance Chairmen have ever been together at a dinner. Both are wonderful guys, I like them very much personally, and they come at issues from different perspectives. I think the best part of the dinner would be for them to find some common ground (one is a Republican and one is a Democrat). We shall see.

So another thing I'm figuring out is that a one-person firm isn't as fun when you have all of these reports you need to fill out. Fortunately, I have an accountant to help with all the financial stuff, but lobbyists have annual registrations with the state lobbying regulatory agency and then we have semi-annual reports to show how much money we spent. I know that doesn't seem much, but since I did two of the three reports over the last month or so, it's just a timely annoyance.

January 5 the fun begins.